


Ninety Nine Down

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky is cold, Bucky's birthday, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra were still nazis, Mild Gore, Slurs, jewish bucky, mild body horror, not so happy birthday, this is pain, this is sad af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 08:17:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3522056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tomorrow he will face his justice, but today he will face his independence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ninety Nine Down

**Author's Note:**

> There are Jewish slurs in this fic, gonna put it out there right away. I am Jewish, and unfortunately experiments on jews, romani and poc were all too real.
> 
> Bucky had a J on his dogtags so if he died in action he would get a funeral of the proper religion.
> 
> (bucky has 3 different birthdates in the MCU bc marvel hates continuity so I'm using the 1916 birthdate)

His name is James Buchanan Barnes, he likes to be called Bucky, he does not like to be called James. He has it written across the star on his arm in sharpie so he doesn't forget, he doesn't think he'll forget even if he rubs the name away. He is a male, although Bucky isn't entirely sure that's right, but he can't dwell on it now. The museum said his birthday is today, he doesn't know what is special about his birthday. He was born, yes, but what does one do on a birthday? Which is how he ends up climbing through the bedroom window of Steve's apartment. 

He doesn't see Steve at first, just smells him, sharp earthy scent and something else, no, it's someone else, he recognizes the smell of her too, the smell of spring rain, Natalia. His memories of her are clearer than the ones he has of Steve are, remembers the blunt slide of her fingernails digging into his scalp, the feel of her muscular thighs as she straddled him. It was only the once, the sex, she had her finger pressed to his lips, said she wasn't supossed to, but how could she resist? He remembers shooting through her for his target the next day, a guilty twist in his stomach as he did. 

He hops down silently from the windowsill, looks at the two softly breathing lumps underneath the sheets of the bed. It's very early, about five am, he stays quiet, knowing that either of them could wake if he makes so much as a sound. He takes a step, the floor creaks and Steve and Natalia both shoot upright simultaneously, Natalia has a gun on him in seconds and he waves his hands in the air.

"I don't want to hurt you, I have questions, I don't want to forget again, I want to stay with you both." He rasps, grimacing at the sound of his underused voice, "Is it really my birthday?"

"Yeah." Steve says, he sounds tired, but his eyes are wide and he looks scared. "You were born on March tenth nineteen-sixteen, you're ninety nine years old."

Bucky scuffs his boots against the hardwood floor, trying not to make eye contact with either of them, "I-I don't remember most of them."

"Sit down." Natalia says, uncocking her gun and setting it down on the nightstand, Bucky sits down, if it were anyone but her or Steve giving him orders, he would defy them, but he trusts them, even though Natalia just pulled a gun on him.

Steve isn't saying much, when Bucky finally musters up the courage to look at his face and make eye contact he sees why, his long eyelashes are wet and clumped together and his eyes are shiny with unshed tears. Bucky leans forward, hesitates, but then continues, butting his forehead against Steve's chest.

"Did I love you?" He asks, and Steve stiffens against him, "I think I still love you."

"Oh mon dieu." Steve says, his voice is thick, Bucky huffs, he remembers that, he remembers Steve saying that, he doesn't remember why or when, doesn't remember what it means either.

"I wanted to know you, Natalia, I want to know you." Bucky shudders, "I shot you, twice, there's no reason for you to forgive me."

"You weren't you." She says, "I know the feeling." Her hand is on the back of his neck, he only flinches for a second, if she wanted to kill him she already would have.

Bucky sighs and relaxes against Steve's chest, he hopes he doesn't smell too badly, he wasn't able to get a shower at the homeless shelter but he did have enough to pay for clean clothes at the laundromat. He's very aware of smells, he wasn't before they, before they, oh he doesn't remember, there's a gap. Something happened during the war, before Steve was there, and then he was there and Bucky worried that he was gonna peel his face off like the Red Skull. But something happened in between and he can't, he can't remember.

He remembers why they took him instead of the others, remembers the guard spitting at his feet after he read his dog tags. curling his lip and snarling, "You filthy Jew." And then dragging him off by the collar of his shirt.

He doesn't remember anything after that for a long stretch, and then Steve being bigger, arm around his shoulders, lots of fading pain.

"Was I Jewish?" He asks Steve, "I think that's why they took me."

Steve gulps, "I-I didn't know that w-was why. But you were, yeah, not that religious though."

Bucky vaguely remembers not eating any kind of bread except for big flat crackers around the time of his birthday, Passover, his mind supplies, the crackers were matzoh.

Natalia's hands are massaging his neck now, along either side of his spine, Steve makes a questioning noise and she says, "Shield did this when they deprogrammed me, it helps sort false memories from real ones, I don't know if you have false memories, but maybe it'll help unearth buried ones."

She hits a spot on his neck and something clicks, a nerve, something, he howls, throwing his head back, images, voices, the gap fills, and he immediately wishes it hadn't.

_"If you don't cooperate we'll castrate you, you don't want that, do you untermensch?" Zola says, holding the scalpel to the seam of his balls, Bucky shakes his head, tears prickling the corners of his eyes._

_"Please don't." He pleads, he's naked except for his dog tags, shivering all over, Zola moves the scalpel up to just below his sternum._

_"Let's see how fast you heal then, if the formula isn't right we'll have to dispose of you and try again." He presses the scalpel down and Bucky sobs as it cuts through layers of skin and muscle like a hot knife through butter, his muscles twitch and a chasm opens down his abdomen, he closes his eyes, praying the flash of pink he saw wasn't his intestines._

_There's a clank and the soft chatter of footsteps as Zola leaves. Bucky prays that he heals before whatever time limit they've set, no matter what happens, he has to go back to Steve._

_"My name is James Buchanan Barnes, my serial number is 32557038." He whispers, he's starting to forget._

"I remember, I remember, I remember everything." He chants, clutching his head and curling in on himself, there are good memories too, of cake and smiling faces, and the exhilarating rush and tooth rattling clack of the coney cyclone. 

In an instant it changes: _the rush of falling, staring at his own outstretched hand, screaming, it feels like years are going by, Steve's horrified face ingrained into his mind._

_He hits the ground sideways on a sharp rock, hears the snap of his arm coming clean off to the bone an instant before he feels it, hazy pain dancing from severed nerve endings like a distant echo. He rolls onto his back and looks down, his arm is hanging on by a strip of skin, there's bone fragments and blood, there's so much blood._

_"I'm sorry, Steve." He whispers as his vision fades to white, death is calling his name, except his vision doesn't fade completely, death is reaching, scrambling for him, but it can't catch him, it's so cold, it's so damn cold._

_He can't move when they take him, half frozen solid and still conscious, he can't even scream._

_"Stick him in the freezer until everything is ready." Someone says, and they prop him up like a statue in a frigid chamber, it takes a long time for him to fall unconscious._

"I'm so cold." He whimpers, barely notices that Natalia has pressed herself to his back, Steve's arms wrapped around them both. 

"I'm going to run him a bath, please stay with him Natasha." He looks at her with pleading, loving eyes, slipping out from underneath Bucky, who immediately curls into a tight ball.

"Of course I'll stay." Natalia -no, Steve had called her Natasha- says, spooning up against Bucky in their new position.

Bucky listens to the water running, Natasha breathing steady against the back of his neck. He stops whimpering and lets the memories spread out where they're supposed to be, all the people he's killed, those memories he feels detached from, like he knew what he was doing, but didn't know why it was bad. There are a lot of memories like that, he sucks in a deep breath to steady himself.

His name is Bucky Barnes, and he knows he won't forget, today is his birthday, and the weight in his chest has lifted.

He won't forget the bad things he has done, the people he has killed, but at least he knows who he is and where he belongs. He knows his body belongs to him and him alone, he knows he is not property, not a robot or a failed science project, he is a human being.

Tomorrow he will face his justice, but today he will face his independence.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations-
> 
> Oh mon dieu- oh my god (french) the language that Steve and Bucky probably spoke most on the front lines.
> 
> untermensch- subhuman, slur mainly used against jews (german)


End file.
